The Case Files of Patient 57
by RogueBludgers394
Summary: Patient 57 - Neville Frank Longbottom - lived for twelve years at Caylarium Institute. He alongside Patients 21 and 101 were the first to go to Hogwarts in three decades. Together, they prove that everyone has a story no matter how insignificant their beginnings.


**(The Case Files) of Patient 57**

**RogueBludgers394**

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**Hi. This is a collaborative piece between AlwaysPadfoot (Ami) and Cookies-and-Ink (Abby). **We both love Neville and wanted to take him out of his comfort zone and show his true awesomeness. Plus we got to play with OCs and minor characters, which is always a bonus.

This Fic will run through all seven years of Hogwarts and much drama is heading your way :)

**Ami: **Caylarium Institute is my brain child and is used as a Permanent Setting in the Wizarding World. It started in Forever Defying the Ordinary (By Me) and then progressed into Snapshots of Multicolour (By Abby).

**DISCLAIMER: **Harry Potter does not belong to us. Shame really :) Everything you recognise is JKs.

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**Chapter One**

**Activate Stealth Mode, Locate Albino Gnomes.**

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"Neville!"

It was the fourth time I'd heard my name. Oddly now though, Natalie Portman had somehow developed a Scottish accent.

"Neville wake up!"

"Natalie, the zombies, the orange zombies." I mumbled, then with instincts that come after years of being forcibly woken my eyes snapped open, arms coming up to shield my face. Morag was straddling my waist and for a moment I wondered when we'd both gotten so weird that this position felt acceptable. Then I noticed a cold mug of tea held threateningly above me, ready to be tipped over me. It wouldn't be the first time, I wasn't exactly a light sleeper. She sighed at my look and placed it back carefully on the bedside table.

"Morag, it's -"

"4:20am, although, I think your clock is slow. I've been trying to wake you up for ages!"

She shook me lightly with a scowl and then clambered off, crossing the room before returning and pushing my dressing gown into my hands.

"There's no time for you to be tired. Come on!"

"It's 4am! There's nowhere we can go! Morag, go back to sleep."

She narrowed her eyes, giving me what I liked to call 'the dragon look'.

"Jon's back."

I dressed quickly in silence. It had been a long time since we'd snuck around at night and I had no idea who was on patrol. If I wasn't with Mags I would have been convinced I'd get caught, but she was the sneakiest person I know so they'd have to be good.

Jon had a room on the third floor, Morag's and mine were of the top floor so it wasn't as simple as just crossing the corridor. Admittedly, we were only one floor above but still, it would be a challenge. Morag opened my door ever so slightly and listened hard for any noise. Once she was greeted by complete silence for over a minute she widened the gap and peered out, searching for any signs of movement. Finally sure, she muttered something to herself and slipped outside, waving me after her. I instantly found myself glancing up and down out of habit to see if anyone was coming.

You couldn't be too careful.

I closed the door after me and followed her to the left wing staircase. It was closer to Jon's room and subsequently we had a shorter journey, although, the left wing staircase had creaky stairs and I always forgot which ones creaked. I could hardly watch where Morag was going since the corridors were so bloody dark.

We always did this in silence, it was worth not talking if it meant we avoided getting caught.

Upon reaching the staircase, which went down in a zig zag to reach the third floor. Morag held her hand out to tell me to stop whilst she went ahead. We generally alternated who did the risk taking, but I daren't speak just in case. She descended the stairs, however as she got midway down the first set, a light lit up the corridor below us, bouncing off the wall.

Being exceptionally light on her feet she rushed back up the stairs silently and I grabbed her arm looked anxiously around. Pulling her back over to a table in an alcove I shuffled back into the shadows and pressed a finger against her lips.

My heart was thumping against my ribcage as the light got brighter and the sound of heavy footsteps got louder. It had a while since we'd actually bumped into someone, but then again it had been at least two months since we'd crept around in the dark. I silently cursed when a pair of boots appeared and stopped in front of the table; it was Jake. He was nothing short of a twisted bastard, as Jon would say.

We both moved further back into the shadows in fear, almost as if we were waiting for him to find us hiding. I suddenly became very aware of my breathing, sucking in a breath and holding it.

He seemed to stand there silently for ages, before finally, he disappeared along the way in which we had come. We remained still, and after a long second I scooted out from under the table. I looked up and down the corridor and then I held my hand out to Morag with a grin.

"Let's go," I whispered, barely audible, "Let's get out of here."

I made it down the staircase only by concentrating hard, putting my feet exactly where Mags had been. Since Jake had already gone past there was no real danger of us bumping into someone, still we both crept down the corridor until we got to Jon's door. Plain dark wood just like ours, it swung open silently and I sighed shakily at the sight of Jon sprawled face down on the carpet.

"They just threw him in here!" Mags snarled angrily and I helped her turn him over. There was a cut down his cheek and the bruises Gerard had given him were turning a yellowy green. Apart from that he seemed fine, physically at least. For the next week I knew he would be jumpy, cagey and even quieter than normal but after a week of complete isolation in a dark room what would you expect.

"I hate this place." I whispered before jerking my head towards the bed. "Come on, help me lift him up. Jon always seems to weigh a tonne when he's drugged."

"You should try carrying you!" Morag snorted and I huffed.

"Just because I'm not stick thin like Mr Boot here does not make me fat."

She rolled her eyes at me and grabbed his legs. I wasn't lying when I said Jon was heavy, I nearly dropped him as we carried him to the other side of the room. Placing him unceremoniously down with a groan Morag rolled her eyes once more and then pulled the duvet over him, climbing into bed by his side. I pulled the chair closer and she threw me a pillow.

I'd lost count of how many times I'd fallen asleep in Jon's chair, it was comfier than the one in Morag's room. Technically it was against the rules for the three of us to fall asleep in the same room, especially with Morag and Jon in the same bed but we'd never gotten told off, just ignored like always and after Jon being away for so long we all needed it.

Jon's voice woke me in what seemed like a second after I'd dropped off.

"You need a haircut, I'm practically suffocating here."

Rubbing my eyes and squinting over at them I shook my head with a grin. I couldn't even see Jon's face for all of Morag's curls which appeared to have exploded out of her hair band. She grumbled into the pillow and then there was the sound of shuffling as Jon pushed himself into a sitting position to peer over her at me.

"Hey Nev."

His voice was hoarse and the small smile he gave me didn't exactly ease my worries but I smiled back and made a general gesture of astonishment at Morag which made him smile a little wider.

"At least she didn't wake you by straddling you with ice cold tea as a weapon."

"Mouldy tea. The milk had gone off and was all clumpy." Morag corrected me with a yawn and I wrinkled my nose.

"Oh wow, you two did have fun while I was away." Jon snorted before poking Mags.

"Move. I want a shower."

I let Mags fall back asleep while Jon was in the bathroom for the sake of my sanity and mankind alike. If she felt like she got enough sleep she was the craziest morning person but Merlin help us all if she got too much or too little. I stretched and stole a toffee from Jon's endless supply, already not looking forward to today and seriously dreading tomorrow.

"Don't even think about it, it's not worth it." Jon mumbled, towel drying his hair furiously. "Tomorrow's going to be a bitch whatever the outcome."

I grimaced, nerves flooding through me hard. A sharp knock on the door with a call of "Breakfast you hopeless layabouts, move your ass!" sufficiently distracted me.

"She's so professional."

Poking my head out of the door I called Kiera's name, watching in amusement as she skipped back down the corridor, arms swinging wildly.

"Mr Longbottom, how may I help you this glorious summer's day?"

"I was wondering who's on duty today."

"Just me."

Morag gave a cheer behind me and Kiera raised her eyebrows.

"What're you two doing in Jon's room anyway?"

"Annoying me," came the yelled reply and I gave a broad grin with a slight shrug.

"You three are really weird." Kiera said after a pause before skipping off, calling over her shoulder "Pancakes will be ready in approximately four minutes. Get 'em while they're hot."

What could best be described as a stampede happened shortly after this announcement. Kiera's pancakes had become legend in Caylarium, she could only cook them when she was on duty in the morning and by the time we got to the kitchen it was chaos.

Jon, Mags and I stole our usual seats at the far end of the table, deciding to wait because everyone was trying to get to the pancakes and if we weren't careful someone would end up getting hurt. As if on cue, somebody yelled furiously.

"Phantom, you little shit!"

There was a childish laugh as Phantom, a five year old white haired little boy, zoomed out of the squish of children with a plate full of pancakes smothered in chocolate sauced and snapped up the seat beside Mags.

"Who did you steal those off?" I asked.

"I took them off Harvey," he answered simply, "If I'd stole them he wouldn't have known it was me."

I laughed, all I could think was that Harvey probably would have figured out, but then Phantom was five so he probably felt quite proud of himself. Saying that, I could tell he was going to be a sneaky bugger when he grew up, and he was right, when he stole things he'd probably be even better.

Finally, once everyone had gotten their pancakes, the three of us went up to collect ours..

"Oh by the way you three, Ella-Louise wanted to see you in about twenty minutes."

We all exchanged apprehensive looks. Ella-Louise was probably the worst person who worked here, and when I say work, I mean she ran the place. She was freakishly good at making Caylarium Institute look like it should, even though we all knew that the reality wasn't so fantastic. She was a bloody master when it came to being false.

Everyone, no matter what they said, was scared of her.

The news kind of put a downer on Kiera's amazing pancakes and the rest of breakfast. After all, tomorrow had me more nervous than I had been in a long time and a meeting with Ella-Louise on top of that? Well, nervous was no longer an apt description of how I was feeling.

"What do you reckon she wants?" Mags didn't look up when she spoke, she just took another bite of her pancakes smothered in caramel.

"It'll just be about tomorrow." Jon answered reassuringly, trying to sound somewhat confident. We were all thinking the same thing though, what if she knows we stayed in Jon's room last night? We always got away with that.

"Yeah," I echoed, "Just about tomorrow."

Ten minutes later we found ourselves on the second floor corridor, outside Ella-Louise's office. After we all anxiously looked at each other Mags nudged me forward "Go on, Nev."

Reluctantly I lifted my hand to the door and confidently knocked three times. There was a second of silence.

"Come in."

After exchanging one last look, I reached down and pushed open the door. With a small grin I stepped back, nodding Mags through and making it look like I was being polite. She scowled at me and as we filed inside the office I knew she was probably going to get her revenge, but at least I managed to let a smile pass my lips.

Ella-Louise was sat at her desk, flicking through the Daily Prophet as we lined up in front of her. We knew better than to speak up. She knew we were here, she'd talk to us when she felt she wanted to whether that be in a second or in twenty minutes, we'd find out what she wanted us to know eventually.

I resisted the urge to sigh. Mags was glaring at her shoes and Jon's eyes were fixed straight ahead, slightly out of focus. Amusing myself by imagining what he could be daydreaming about I started slightly when EL Diablo cleared her throat.

"Good morning," she smiled sweetly at us.

"Good morning, Miss."

It was like this all the time: always be polite, always add Miss, always answer when spoken too.

"As you all know, tomorrow you will accompanied to the Ministry for your Hogwarts assessment." Ella-Louise said and my stomach clenched at the reminder. "So in preparation for this, you three will be filling out some things this morning with Kiera."

"Thank god," Mags barely breathed it and for once I don't think Ella-Louise heard her. She usually does.

"I expect you'll be finished for the second lesson of the day." she told us. That's code for you will be finished by then.

"Fill it out appropriately and to the best of any mediocre ability you have, do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, Miss." we said in well-practiced unison.

"Excellent," she clapped her hands together with her typical little grin, "Jonathan, a quick word."

Morag and I looked at each other before Ella-Louise shooed us from the office and Jon was left behind. The door closed with a snap and then I felt Morag tense by my side.

Gerard was standing halfway down the hall, stock still and staring at us. I corrected myself as soon as I thought it, he wasn't staring at us at all.

He was staring at Morag.

Two years older than us, Gerard was someone you tried to stay away from, he was the kind of person that belonged here at Caylarium absolutely no questions asked. He'd gone away for two months, a test subject for some new meds or something and since he'd been back he had felt even more... dangerous than normal, that was the only word for it.

He also hadn't stopped staring at Morag and seemed to be everywhere she went. Since we were living under the same roof that probably doesn't curious but Caylarium wasn't just a house, it was built to hold a load of rich mentally unstable kids. Spacious didn't even come close, we even had a giant indoor pool in the basement.

Almost everything you can imagine was here as well as every type of crazy. Gerard turning stalker was the reason Jon had ended up in detention. Two weeks ago we'd come back from class to find Morag's room a mess, absolutely turned upside down. There were three kleptomaniacs on our floor so Ella Louise had questioned them but we'd known better. Above her bed someone had drawn a pair of eyes in permanent marker, the ceiling had to be re-painted because it wouldn't come off.

It was him, it had to be.

Morag had been more shook up than I'd seen her in a long time. Jon and I knew we had to do something, that was how it worked here. You fought your own battles and tried to not get caught by an adult. Jon had volunteered to take the fall this time; I'd never seen him so angry.

Putting an arm around Mags' shoulder I turned us around heading towards Kiera's office.

"What about Jon?"

"He's already been in there longer than normal and Ella Louise will flip if we 'dilly dally'." I said, imitating her annoying voice. "She'll probably get him to floo, he might even be there now."

The last part was a complete guess, I was just hoping if she made him walk through the house that Gerard wasn't still outside.

Half an hour later I was ready to stab someone with a pencil, specifically whatever idiot had come up with the form we had to fill in.

"Have you seen 13e? What sort of a stupid question is that?!" Morag exploded and I flicked through to find it.

_Q13e. You are stuck in a room with one person and only one bottle of water. What do you do?_

_Depends on the person with you._

_Kill the other person and drink the water._

_Share the water and then drink each other's blood._

_Stare at the water and hope it duplicates_

_Tip the water over yourself or the other person and then start to dance._

I raisedan eyebrow, silently debating which answer to choose and wondering what the consequences of each one were.

"If you think that's weird, check out question 17," Jon interjected.

_Q17. What do a panda, a gnome, a candle and a star have in common?_

"What the fuck?"

I smirked at Morag's choice of words and rubbed the back of my neck as I thought of an answer.

"Nothing. That's the answer," I said, "It could hardly be anything else, right?"

"And they say we're crazy." Jon said wryly.

Kiera tutted at that. "You're not crazy." she said stubbornly and we all looked at her in blank surprise.

"Pray tell why on earth we're here then? It's hardly because we're normal. Normal kids don't get treated like us."

Jon didn't look up as he said this, his hair hiding his face and I watched Kiera's expression falter. She was a good person and didn't ever approve of the disciplinary measures Ella-Louise implemented against us but there was little she could do. As Jon pointed out, no one really cared about us because we weren't normal. We were at Caylarium Institution for a reason, normally one we'd each like to forget.

Mags scooted her chair closer to him, punching him on the arm hard with a shrug after he glowered. Having a girl around really helped, they're so touchy feely and emotional.

The questions got weirder as it went on and the mood which we were all fighting off became a fair bit lighter as we made up answer after answer, Kiera coming up with a fair few. She then told us the plans for tomorrow and I hoped that Mags was paying attention because I really wasn't listening, too busy trying to think what a panda and candle _could_have in common.

"None of them have any specific colour to them." I said as we left Kiera's office and Mags wrinkled her nose.

"Gnomes come in colours as do candles."

"Yeah but loads of different ones and pandas are black and white; they're not colours and stars..." I faltered, my knowledge of astronomy non-existent.

"Albino gnomes. That's the answer." Jon said and Morag's eyes widened.

"Albino gnomes? With red eyes? Why on earth would you have them in your garden? That's creepy!"

"They don't exist! I was being sarcastic. Honestly you are so gullible!"

"They could exist."

"Why would someone make an albino gnome?" Jon said exasperatedly. Morag came up with an immediate, detailed answer on the spot which had him rolling his eyes and I grinned broadly, interjecting that albino gnomes could camouflage themselves in the snow, just to annoy him.

So we were all a bit more than a little crazy, it came with the territory of living in a mental institution for a good few years. As to why we were here, it'd definitely be brought up tomorrow and I didn't really want to think about it now. Still, we'd survived this and how hard could a full day of testing be?

"Do you think they'll let us go?" Morag asked, pausing at the bottom of the stairs. She was studying Latin whilst Jon and I had to get to History at the other end of the building.

"To Hogwarts? I hope so Mags." I said bracingly "We know that we could be worse, that we're good at magic. There's absolutely no reason for them not to really."

She gave me a look and then a rapid hug before walking down the corridor.

"Mind giving me a pep talk?"

"Jon, you're a miserable bastard and we're all going to fail." I said deadpan and he threw his arms around me.

"Dude I love you too man."

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**So there you go there's Chapter One :)**

**Please review :)**

**Ami and Abby x**


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